Question of the Day

What was the last personal project you took on that did not go as planned? Did it turn out worse or better than expected?

I've been crafting a bit lately. Any new clothes and holiday or birthday gifts must be homemade this year due to budget considerations. But for various reasons, I have been catastrophizing the slightest difficulty or failure. I tried to make a body lotion the other day that failed spectacularly. "Flocculation" is fun to say, but considerably less fun to clean up. I was miserable, even though the first rule of DIYers must be, "have a sense of humor about your own disastrous attempts".

The bright side is that my lip balms, cleansers, and anhydrous body butters have been going splendidly. And I need those small successes to get past the EPIC FAIL of that ill-fated body lotion.

I also cursed about once per minute while making my new bamboo rib knit tee, which was a complete pain in the neck. The bamboo/cotton rib knit (from fabric dot com) is gorgeous and so comfortable to wear, and it does not pill as badly as bamboo jersey. However, it is difficult to work with. It is mushy to sew and very hard to keep on-grain. I had to cut everything out in a single layer. Worse, I had to cut the back out in two pieces and have a center-back seam. Now, the bright side of a center-back seam is that I can take the back in to make it fit better (my waist is a pattern-size or two smaller than my hips).

But I could not see the bright side until the thing was done. Turns out, you can't even see the center-back seam (photo below the fold). At the end of all the cursing, I did get the tee I wanted-- a bamboo knit with elbow-length sleeves, a neck high enough to protect against every itchy sweater winter has to offer, a nice drape, and supreme softness--for the cost of about $7.00.

Sure, there is some rippling in the sleeve hems*, in spite of the fact that I interfaced all the hems to prevent rippling. I don't know where my sense of humor about such SNAFUs went, but I think the solution is to keep at it and accrue some small victories.

*I think this is due to stretching the fabric over the free-arm of my sewing machine.



Me in my new black bamboo rib knit T-shirt. The back is similar to the front. You get to see my vintage Stetson instead of my face, because these are the Internets (hat from Alley Cats Vintage on Etsy).